


Almost Like Praying

by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, F/M, I'm a Madam Satanist, I'm not a Satanist, Lilith's got some Eden nostalgia, Magic, Religion, Wishes, Witchcraft, Zelda Spellman Needs A Hug, and Zelda will be too in a minute, i don't know what this is, i mean all of them do but specifically these two for now, or why i wrote it, women who deserve better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 04:50:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18218432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish/pseuds/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish
Summary: It’s not often that she comes upon a wish, much less a wish worth granting.





	Almost Like Praying

**Author's Note:**

> Things I should be doing: cleaning, working, writing the rest of Falling for Make-Believe  
> Things I’m doing instead: this
> 
> Hope you have fun!

Wishes. The most ancient form of magic.

Pure will molded by the mind, glittering and sharp. From the very beginning, before there were incantations, before rituals and tradition, before grimoires, before goblins, before witchcraft had so much as a name, there was the silent wonder of raw magic.

In Eden, wishes flew vibrantly betwixt lush greenery and crystalline streams, fragile and free. Lilith remembers dancing with them tangled in her thicket of dark curls, sun speckling shadows of the first runes across her skin.

But magic has changed. Magic—at least for the modern witch—is a means to an end, used for party tricks or expedition of the mundane. It no longer rushes feral in their veins. It is not stitched into the fabric of their souls. Instead, it has become something of a trans-dimensional dishcloth.

She is footsoldier to a vicious and neglectful god. Over eons of bathing the earth in blood by His side, the dull duties of the Dark Lord have fallen to His dark mistress. She watches over His sinners, follows His orders, and kneels at His feet, while He lies gluttonous upon a mountain of jewels and bones, draped in velvet and vices.

She answers prayers, but she does not grant wishes. She’s learned the difference is vast.

The prayers of His people are vile and rancid. They beg for Him forgiveness, freedom, demons to fight their battles. Greed pulses filthy and thick beneath the thin facade of devotion each plea carries as it is flung into the abyss, her domain. Power and revenge, these are the only things they care for. She is haunted by the horrors they request of Him and, subsequently, of her.

Wishes, though, wishes are innocent. They are wisps of dreams, floating like dandelion seeds on the backs of hopeful breezes. Lilith has never been a practitioner of light magic, but the weary wandering of wishes makes them oddly irresistible. In a way, she is the Mother of Wishes much as she is the Mother of Demons. She birthed the first of them both when she crafted her escape from the garden.

And now, countless years later, the tremulous song of a witch’s wish is an unexpected delight, a fresh splash of wine down the throat of her long-parched decency. It catches her ear with its softness, its stillness in amongst the boisterous rioting of spells and curses. The wish settles lightly, its dim glow illuminating the lines of her palm as she twirls it between her fingers and waits for it to spill its secrets onto her stolen skin.

The wish whispers to her of centuries-old longing and aching loneliness. It trembles under the rumble of her power, but it does not crack. Even humbled, cradled in her hands, it is too proud to surrender.

Lilith scours the astral plane to locate the wish’s witch. She has always drifted in the space between. Her first loyalty is to herself, and the rest shift with the wind.

She finds Zelda.

The eldest Spellman is sitting at her kitchen table, a cold teacup holding the reflection of the silver moon on the surface of its untouched contents. Her eyes are empty. The whole of her appears more muted, more drab than Lilith remembers, the fiery red of her hair and warm rosiness of her cheeks faded into an unrecognizable, hollow grey. Perhaps Zelda has vacated the premises of her own form just as Lilith has momentarily abandoned Mary Wardwell’s.

At the sight of Zelda, the wish hesitantly unfolds its petals, drawing the demoness’ attention. Inside is the core of the wish, the absolute driving desire that facilitated its creation.

Words are carefully inscribed on the wish’s shell. They are written in the ancient tongue, the first language that flowed from Lilith’s lips in Eden. The first letters of magic.

Love. Tenderness. Truth.

These things, these soft, simple things, are the things the mighty, frigid Zelda Phiona Spellman yearns for. This is what she will never ask of her Dark Lord. This is the color of her weakness.

Lilith sees her own reflection in Zelda’s forsaken tea and something shudders deep in her chest. Something that remembers what it was to be human, what it was to know pain. She thinks it might be her heart.

Lilith has seen revolution. Mortal, divine, and everything in between.

She’s set it in motion with sighing winds of restlessness, the perfume of blood to be spilt, whispers of power in the ears of the most wild, violent dreamers. She’s plagued cities, poisoned civilizations, ravaged humanity to burn her own blazing path through their history. A belligerent force of destruction since her first fall from grace.

She is wiser now, and she remembers that all rebellious tides begin with a single drop of a raging ocean. Even the fiercest fires begin with a tiny spark, the scratch of a match.

So perhaps this is how her era, the new age of Hell, begins. With a silent wish granted, balancing just on the edge of allowance. A delicate discretion of her power, a pinch of stardust slipping from her fingertips. Maybe, this is the first chink in His armor.

And she can, to use the crude mortal turn of phrase, “kill two birds with one stone”. A whole handful of “birds”, actually. Fulfill Zelda’s wish, defy Satan in the most innocent of ways she’s able, gain an ally at least. If not a lover, a prophet and high priestess for her realm’s new order.

Revolutions over millennia also taught her that such an undertaking is not one to approach alone.

Then, rather suddenly, her mutiny blooms. It is about more than the throne now, though she’s earned that a hundred times over. It’s about Zelda too. Zelda, her family, her coven, the entire Church of Night. The red haze of jealousy and spite clears for a moment, and she sees how twisted the world of witches has become, and she knows that, with this one wish, everything could change.

Kneeling beside her, Lilith looks up at the paradoxical witch.

She’s certainly beautiful. And while truly devoted to the Dark Lord, her first loyalty is to her family, the people she loves. Lilith finds herself believing that if anyone could understand her incredibly ambitious scheme—and all that accompanies it—it would be Zelda. With their combined knowledge, power, and sheer resilience, Lilith’s coup could succeed. Besides, after all the sacrifices she’s made, after everything she’s been through, Zelda surely deserves a gentle, caring, warm body in her bed. And even the Mother of Demons herself misses the fire she felt for Him before her devastating disillusionment. That most early intimacy robbed her of something sweet and succulent that is all too ready to be reclaimed.

Her heart decides in the end. It trips, still getting its bearings after thousands of years buried, and from it tumbles a bright new wish. Hers.

She frees both of them with a light, promising kiss, and they burst into tiny golden fireworks.

Tomorrow, everything will begin anew, but tonight she guides Zelda back to her bed and tucks her in, all lullabies and lingering. Tonight, she is a goddess reborn.

Tonight, she grants wishes.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know about you, but I’m still hung up on the use of betwixt. Like, where did that even come from? Who says ‘betwixt’? Well, me, I guess. Wild.
> 
> There’s a point when I’m writing/revising when the whole piece just devolves into rambling chunks of random mess, so let me know if you could make sense of it? Or if you liked it? Or not? Or what your favorite type of penguin is? Whatever you want to do. :)
> 
> Thanks for going on this funky little journey with me, and be sure to lock your doors, eat a good breakfast (and every meal, really), and hydrate, kids.  
> Love, Ruby


End file.
